The air conditioning industry has come under heightened scrutiny to improve indoor air quality, particularly relating to health risks that have been identified as resulting from microbial and mold growth from standing condensate in air conditioning units. Typically, the standing condensate remains in the drain pans during and after the air conditioning unit's run cycle. This accumulation of condensate allows the microbial growth to occur and affects the resultant indoor air quality during subsequent run cycles. Primarily for this reason, the air conditioning industry has heightened its awareness regarding the maintenance and cleaning of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) units to eliminate the aforementioned problem.
Attempted solutions have involved a variety of drain pan configurations. Prior art drain pan configurations have involved multiple components and multiple connections in order to secure the drain pan to the HVAC unit and to encourage elimination of the condensate. Multiple components discharging condensation require multiple drain pans, thereby exasperating the problem that the drain pan is trying to resolve. Additionally, multiple components make the installation and fastening of the drain pan to the HVAC unit cumbersome. Also, for many of the existing drain pan configurations, the orientation of the drain pan with respect to the HVAC unit is critical. Furthermore, existing drain pan configurations require a precise leveling of the HVAC unit to ensure the condensate drips at a particular location, and subsequently drains to a defined location.
Existing drain pan configurations often contain a drain hole or drain plug. The drain hole or plug is conducive to not only microbial growth, but is also susceptible to eventual clogging of the opening. This, in turn, will result in overflow of the condensate drain pan as well as accumulation of condensate within the HVAC unit and to the surrounding space.
There are also other problems which commonly occur with condensate drain pans. The many different types of HVAC units involve different air flow volumes and different velocities because of the different blower settings, duct work, and size of the unit. A unit with a relatively high air flow may cause the condensate to blow out of the condensate drain pan if the water level is too high. In addition, depending on where the condensate drips onto the drain pan, some existing configurations may serve some types of HVAC units adequately, whereas the same drain pan configuration will be ineffective on another type of HVAC unit.
Many existing drain pan configurations have incorporated multiple drain outlets in an attempt to accommodate different HVAC units and different condensate draining situations. This approach not only results in one or more drain outlets not being used, but also results in an additional fixture by which condensate can accumulate resulting in microbial growth.
Another existing approach to maintaining the cleanliness of drain pans is by chemical treatment. This process involves periodically treating the accumulated condensate by using various chemicals which prohibit microbial growth. Typically, this process first involves cleaning the drain pan by removing the existing accumulated condensate and subsequently depositing chemicals such that future condensate is treated as it stagnates in the drain pan. This process not only involves a time-consuming step of cleaning the drain pan, but also involves the secondary step of periodically applying chemicals. This process also requires that the HVAC unit be maintained on a preventative maintenance program to ensure that timely chemical treatment of the standing condensate is completed. Additionally, the use of chemicals in this process also affects the indoor air quality due to the fact that the HVAC unit has an intake which consumes the surrounding chemically-altered air.
Thus, there has long been a need for a condensate drain pan which can be installed on a wide variety of HVAC units, which is effective in retrofit applications, which minimizes the need for cleaning, which facilitates condensate flow, and which is easily and inexpensively manufactured.